Life from the viewpoint of someone who needs to be in three four places at once.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Blueberry Strawberry Hill

I cast on for Strawberry Hill from Norah Gaughan Vol 3. Don't the tessalated units look like apple core quilt units?To figure out how large the sweater will become, I made a 2x2 unit measuring slightly more than 9" across in either direction. The front and back are 4 units long and 4 units wide. Look at that short sweater body! The only reason her belly button doesn't show is because the model is 5'2" tall and is wearing a sweater sized for a 38" bust.The sweater can always be lengthened with an additional row of units or a border. I am more worried about running out of yarn. I had bought a bag of 10 brilliant blue balls of Maratona years ago. However, one has gone AWOL. With 10, I might have been able to eke out enough yardage if I omitted the turtleneck (not necessary in LA). Webs has the yarn on sale, but not in a matching color. (That didn't stop me from ordering 1 kg of it for a cabled sweater for Mark.)

Maratona's gauge is 5 st/in in stockinette and the pattern calls for 4.5 st/in. To compensate, I knit the next size up, casting on 33 stitches for each unit. Berrocco Palace is a silk/merino blend while Maratona is 100% merino.

The pattern is not hard, once I got the hang of the ptbl, purl through back loop. That, and the frequent turning, make the sweater slow going. I think I have enough sweaters to keep me warm until this one is done. ;-)

Yes, you can see in the top picture that I have picked up 33 stitches from the open side edge of one unit.

The first stitch is actually the loop left over from binding off the unit previously knit. Then I fold the edge in thirds and mark them with split stitch rings. I pick up 10 more stitches to the first ring, 11 between the next two rings, 10 more along the final third, and "go around the corner" and pick up one final stitch.

Vivian Hoxbro's book, Module Knitting, has good pictures of the "around the corner" stitch. It really makes for a tighter join at the corners.

I love that sweater and have it on my rather amorphous queue. It is not slated for immediate knitting. At 5'9" with a long torso I would definitely have to lengthen it. Maybe after the new year. It looks like interesting, if slow, knitting.